BS: Catfish

Subject: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 28 Apr 15 - 08:20 PM

Steel head moved out, now it's the catfish. I bet I caught 50 tonight no real size except for one big channel cat that looked like something off river monsters. Most just nice Bullhead

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Apr 15 - 09:53 PM

Bullheads where I grew up (Puget Sound) are tough spiny slimy bottom dwellers that no one would eat if they were starving. Throw 'em back. Interesting, they are in both fresh and salt water, as I recall.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: frogprince
Date: 28 Apr 15 - 09:56 PM

Heh, heh...I have no idea what little Minnesota lake our family was on one evening, approx. 60 years ago, when we started pulling in little bullheads. The four of us caught 56 in just a few minutes. We never thought of the concept of catch and release back then. The whole mess of them just dressed out to one decent fish meal.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 28 Apr 15 - 10:28 PM

I throw everything back. Some guys here in town love them. Srs fresh water is different than salt water bulls . I have eaten them, very good but not anymore. All fish go back unless someone wants them. Now that big channel lots of meat but he is free also. I look at em, talk to them and away they go

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Apr 15 - 10:57 PM

Catfish, completely skinned and soaked for 8 hours in cheap beer (take off the oil that comes up) makes a nice, mild, white fish suitable for chowders, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 11:02 AM

Dan, sounds like you've gone to fishing heaven. I don't encounter catfish very often but when I do it's usually a gafftopsail which is known as a sailcat down here. It's a scary looking critter with venomous spines who will eat shrimp and crab fly patterns and puts up a good scrap.

When I was a kid we used to catch catfish in the Potomac and my mom would soak them in brine over night and fry them up in the morning with scrambled eggs. Quite good.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 11:17 AM

Catfish are wonderful eating fish for sure, one of my favorites but my Mrs doesn't eat them and I don't want to mess with them so I don't keep any. I will order it in a restaurant. Gilly fishing here is amazing, in a couple of weeks I will take some pictures of the monster small mouth bass we get

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 11:31 AM

One time in the Florida Keys my daughter and I were fishing on a dock in the ocean and she caught a huge ocean cat. Don't know what kind as I don't fish in the ocean but it was fun. She was young then and we let it go
Some guy was nice enough to net it for us

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 11:48 AM

Smallmouth bass, that dredges up some more childhood memories. Me and my chums used to fish the confluence of the Potomac and Shennandoah rivers at Harper's Ferry. We'd go up there in the late summer when the water was low and wade way out there and throw 2" Rapala minnows and catch a bunch of them. I think they were mostly 1-2 pounders but they were such beautiful, sporting fish.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 01:34 PM

Oh yeah the smallies here are amazing, rapala works great. I use more of the twister tail jigs. We really get some monsters here. Lake Erie really has taken off in the small mouth bass world. People come from everywhere

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 01:35 PM

I am going down tonight and see if I can get another big channel cat

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 07:52 PM

Big?   Will it be this big?


a Missouri catfish

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 08:12 PM

Now that's a fish Gilly.. I got skunked tonight nothing

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 09:08 PM

Wow, that catfish probably had it's own area code.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: gnu
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 10:20 PM

Basstards! Invasive species them there bass. Not a native species and totally a drain on the ecosystem. Eating up native stocks (eggs especially) like trout and salmon here in NB.ca. Big flap on the go between us and Maine right now about reintroducing blocking fish ladders on the St. Croix during the spring gaspereau run. The Maineiac Governor LePage wants to do it because the outfitters on the upper reaches of the water shed in his state say they hurt the bass fishing which is complete bullshit... TWITS! The gaspereau actually do more good for the bass than if they weren't there and they provide a great fishery in the inland waters and in the gulf. I have documentation but this is a fishing thread so it's time for fishing stories and... rant over.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 10:44 PM

Taken near my home town.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 12:13 AM

Holy shit rap

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: Charmion
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 08:33 AM

That beast does not look like the species found in the Ottawa River and its tributaries. From the photos on Wikipedia, the local critter is probably the channel catfish. Whatever it is, we call it "barbotte" and nobody -- No. Body! -- who grew up around here would eat one under any but the direst of circumstances.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 10:15 AM

Looks like a channel to me but even the monsters here are no way that big.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 11:01 AM

I got one 20 or so pounds but nothing like that, channel cats are tasty by the way.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 03:27 PM

Actually, I think 20 pounds is big enough, especially if it's good to eat.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 04:42 PM

I happened to be in a bar in a small town on the Missouri River one day when someone brought in a big catfish he'd caught. I didn't see the fish, but all of us in the bar (at least 30 people) ate our fill from it and there was plenty left over. It was delicious! And it didn't have all the annoying tiny little bones that supermarket catfish have.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 07:12 PM

They are amazing good eating fish. I had them fried baked broiler and about with every beer and they are amazing

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 09:23 PM

The late, lamented, Pete's Boat House in served nothing but catfish, Coke, and beer. Open only during boating season (roughly from just after the floods to just before ice-up), the owner retired quite wealthy. Best catfish on the Mississippi! Pete's was in Lagrange, Missouri.

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 01 May 15 - 07:40 PM

Caught a bunch this evening, all on worms sitting in my portable fishing chair and drinking
A diet coke. Yes life is ggood

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: frogprince
Date: 01 May 15 - 07:54 PM

How did you accomplish that if the worms were sitting in your portable fishing chair?

Subject: RE: BS: Catfish
From: olddude
Date: 01 May 15 - 09:03 PM

Fish fear me, they jump in my lap and give up